teaching and tradition already established and ‘in the air’. If the scrolls dated from Jesus’ lifetime, however, or from shortly thereafter, they might prove more embarrassing still. They might be used to argue that the ‘Teacher of Righteousness’ who figures in them was Jesus himself, and that Jesus was not therefore perceived as divine by his contemporaries. Moreover, the scrolls contained or implied certain premises inimical to subsequent images of ‘early Christianity’. There were, for example, statements of a militant messianic nationalism associated previously only with the Zealots — when Jesus was supposed to be non-political, rendering unto Caesar what was Caesar’s. It might even emerge that Jesus had never dreamed of founding a new religion or of contravening Judaic law.
The evidence can be interpreted in a number of plausible ways, some of which are less compromising to Christendom than others. It is hardly surprising, in the circumstances, that de Vaux should have inclined towards and promulgated the less compromising interpretations. Thus, while it was never stated explicitly, a necessity prevailed to read or interpret the evidence in accordance with certain governing principles. So far as possible, for example, the scrolls and their authors had to be kept as dissociated as possible from ‘early Christianity’ — as depicted in the New Testament — and from the mainstream of 1st-century Judaism, whence ‘early Christianity’ sprang. It was in adherence to such tenets that the orthodoxy of interpretation established itself and a scholarly consensus originated.
Thus, the conclusions to which Father de Vaux’s team came in their interpretation of the scrolls conformed to certain general tenets, the more important of which can be summarised as follows:
1. The Qumran texts were seen as dating from long prior to the Christian era.
2. The scrolls were regarded as the work of a single reclusive community, an unorthodox ‘sect’ on the periphery of Judaism, divorced from the epoch’s main currents of social, political and religious thought. In particular, they were divorced from militant revolutionary and messianic nationalism, as exemplified by the defenders of Masada.
3. The Qumran community must have been destroyed during the general uprising in Judaea in ad 66-73, leaving all their documents behind, hidden for safety in nearby caves.
4. The beliefs of the Qumran community were presented as entirely different from Christianity; and the ‘Teacher of Righteousness’, because he was not portrayed as divine, could not be equated with Jesus.
5. Because John the Baptist was altogether too close to the teachings of the Qumran community, it was argued that he wasn’t really ‘Christian’ in any true sense of the word, ‘merely’ a precursor.
There are, however, numerous points at which the Qumran texts, and the community from which they issued, paralleled early Christian texts and the so-called ‘early Church’. A number of such parallels are immediately apparent.
First, a similar ritual to that of baptism, one of the central sacraments of Christianity, obtained for the Qumran community. According to the Dead Sea text known as the ‘Community Rule’, the new adherent ‘shall be cleansed from all his sins by the spirit of holiness uniting him to its truth… And when his flesh is sprinkled with purifying water and sanctified by cleansing water, it shall be made clean by the humble submission of his soul to all the precepts of God.’1
Secondly, in the Acts of the Apostles, the members of the ‘early Church’ are said to hold all things in common: ‘The faithful all lived together and owned everything in common; they sold their goods and possessions and shared out the proceeds among themselves according to what each one needed. They went as a body to the Temple every day…’2 The very first statute of the ‘Community Rule’ for Qumran states that ‘All… shall bring all their knowledge, powers and possessions into the Community…’3 According to another statute, ‘They shall eat in common and pray in common…’4 And another declares of the new adherent that ‘his property shall be merged and he shall offer his counsel and judgment to the Community’.5
Acts 5:1-11 recounts the story of one Ananias and his wife, who hold back some of the assets they are supposed to have donated to the ‘early Church’ in Jerusalem. Both are struck dead by a vindictive divine power. In Qumran, the penalty for such a transgression was rather less severe, consisting, according to the ‘Community Rule’, of six months’ penance.
Thirdly, according to Acts, the leadership of the ‘early Church’ in Jerusalem consists of the twelve Apostles. Among these, according to Galatians, three — James (’the Lord’s Brother’), John and Peter — exercise a particular authority. According to the ‘Community Rule’, Qumran was governed by a ‘Council’ composed of twelve individuals. Three ‘priests’ are also stressed, though the text does not clarify whether these three are included in the twelve of the ‘Council’ or separate from them.6
Fourthly, and most important of all, both the Qumran community and the ‘early Church’ were specifically messianic in orientation, dominated by the imminent advent of at least one new ‘Messiah’. Both postulated a vivid and charismatic central figure, whose personality galvanised them and whose teachings formed the foundation of their beliefs. In the ‘early Church’, this figure was, of course, Jesus. In the Qumran texts, the figure is known as the ‘Teacher of Righteousness’. At times, in their portrayal of the ‘Teacher of Righteousness’, the Qumran texts might almost seem to be referring to Jesus; indeed, several scholars suggested as much. Granted, the ‘Teacher of Righteousness’ is not depicted as divine; but neither, until some time after his death, was Jesus.
If the Qumran texts and those of the ‘early Church’ have certain ideas, concepts or principles in common, they are also strikingly similar in imagery and phraseology. ‘Blessed are the meek’, Jesus says, for example, in perhaps the most famous line of the Sermon on the Mount, ‘for they shall inherit the earth’ (Matt. 5:5). This assertion derives from Psalm 37:11: ‘But the meek shall possess the land, and delight themselves in abundant prosperity.’ The same psalm was of particular interest to the Qumran community. In the Dead Sea Scrolls, there is a commentary on its meaning: ‘Interpreted, this concerns the congregation of the Poor…’7 The ‘Congregation of the Poor’ (or the ‘meek’) was one of the names by which the Qumran community referred to themselves. Nor is this the only such parallel: ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven’, preaches Jesus (Matt. 5:3); the ‘War Scroll’ from Cave 1 states: ‘Among the poor in spirit there is a power… ‘8 Indeed, the whole of the Gospel of Matthew, and especially Chapters 10 and 18, contains metaphors and terminology at times almost interchangeable with those of the ‘Community Rule’. In Matthew 5:48, for instance, Jesus stresses the concept of perfection: ‘You must therefore be perfect just as your heavenly Father is perfect.’ The ‘Community Rule’ speaks of those ‘who walk in the way of perfection as commanded by God’.9 There will be, the text affirms, ‘no pity on all who depart from the way… no comfort… until their way becomes perfect’.10 In Matthew 21:42, Jesus invokes Isaiah 28:16 and echoes Psalm 118:22: ‘Have you never read in the scriptures: It was the stone rejected by the builders that became the keystone.’ The ‘Community Rule’ invokes the same reference, stating that ‘the Council of the Community… shall be that tried wall, that precious corner-stone’.11
If the Qumran scrolls and the Gospels echo each other, such echoes are even more apparent between the scrolls and the Pauline texts — the Acts of the Apostles and Paul’s letters. The concept of ‘sainthood’, for example, and, indeed, the very word ‘saint’, are common enough in later Christianity, but striking in the context of the Dead Sea Scrolls. According to the opening line of the ‘Community Rule’, however, ‘The Master shall teach the saints to live according to the Book of the Community Rule…’12 Paul, in his letter to the Romans (15:25-7), uses the same terminology of the ‘early Church’: ‘I must take a present of money to the saints in Jerusalem.’
Indeed, Paul is particularly lavish in his use of Qumran terms and images. One of the Qumran texts, for example, speaks of ‘all those who observe the Law in the House of Judah, whom God will deliver… because of their suffering and because of their faith in the Teacher of Righteousness’.13 Paul, of course, ascribes a similar redemptive power to faith in Jesus. Deliverance, he says in his epistle to the Romans (3:21-3), ‘comes through faith to everyone… who believes in Jesus Christ’. To the Galatians (2:16-17), he declares that ‘what makes a man righteous is not obedience to the Law, but faith in Jesus Christ’. It is clear that Paul is familiar with the metaphors, the figures of speech, the turns of phrase, the rhetoric used by the Qumran community in their interpretation of Old Testament texts. As we shall see, however, he presses this familiarity to the service of a very different purpose.
In the above quote from his letter to the Galatians, Paul ascribes no inordinate significance to the Law. In the Qumran texts, however, the Law is of paramount importance. The ‘Community Rule’ begins: ‘The Master shall teach the saints to live according to the Book of the Community Rule, that they may seek God… and do what is good and right before Him, as He commanded by the hand of Moses and all His servants the
